Got hitched, now pulling the cart *rimshot!*

It’s been 8 days since the wedding. The crazy began about 5 days before, Fiance waking at 5 in the morning with a new detail she needed to get taken care of RIGHT NOW SO GET OUT OF BED AND HELP ME. The real test of marriage is the week before the wedding. Emotions are on a knife edge. And as the guy, all I can do is try not to let my jaw drop too much each time she comes up with some new thing to obsess about and flip out over and just quietly follow orders in order to appease the voices now in control of her head.

It was all I could do not to constantly hug her friend who came two days before the wedding to stay with us and divide the crazy appeasement. It was like having a fellow POW, where you look at each other and you just know you are both thinking, “OK, this is nuts, but we are both going to act like she is completely rational and take care of this new problem.”

The best weapon in a wedding arsenal is to have two completely trustworthy and awesome people. People who aren’t the best man and maid of honor, so they can work behind the scenes and kick ass. Fiance gave these two people the power of delegation, a battle plan, and let them take charge. So when the day came, all we had to do was enjoy it.

And we did.

I got to have breakfast at Mickey’s Diner in St. Paul with my buddies. Then I went to get a scalp massage and quick style, my caterpillar eyebrows were trimmed, and then I had 3 hours to sit around waiting.

The wedding was wonderful. Fiance wrote the rough draft, and our last-minute change officiant took it and made it perfect. We included a smudging ritual, a hand wrapping, we all walked down the aisle to “Falling Slowly.” Her father, a pastor, gave us a lecture during the service about how we weren’t doing enough for Christ, but even that didn’t derail the fact I got to hold hands with my honey and look into her eyes for 30 minutes with friends and family watching. Then we did our first dance to “One and Only” by Adele. We’d practiced a few basic moves in the weeks prior, yet still managed to goof a bit here and there (It’s an incredibly slow beat!). 

We invited about 250, and 100 showed up. Some were surprises, like my college roommate who drove up from Chicago just for me. But most were friends of our parents, and not into dancing. About 10 altogether were not married. When the time came for garter and boquet tosses, the DJ made it clear for any supporters to get up and participate. Still only 4-5 people did. I danced alone for several songs, or tried to wrangle my 3 year old niece into dancing when I could peel her away from the tossed boquet she was having fun pulling apart.

Wife told me later how she came upon two of my mother’s friends in attendance as they were discussing how if they wouldn’t let their sons marry a woman they hated.

That one stung. Particularly after I had sent my mother a heartfelt letter explaining why we moved, why I love my fiance, and why I need her support. The only response so far is that she has always supported me and we’ll talk after the honeymoon.

On the plus side, my uncle and aunt (on dad’s side) came with their children. Things were touch and go there, since her father is doing very poorly. We heard they weren’t coming the day before, then on the day they called to say they would be able to make it. Wife and this aunt have a special bond born out of a common shunning by my mother, and are very close because of this. My cousins on that side were the only ones who came, and it was because of my wife. My wife opened my eyes to how my family had always been off with theirs. Ours was the only bridal shower they were invited to of three kids. I’m glad to have a new closeness with these family members because of how accepting and open my wife is.

People were leaving, and things died down at 10 p.m. enough for me to ask the DJ for one last song. We walked back to the St. Paul Hotel, and the next day, we were off to New York. More on that soon.

By the way, if you need photography services, you can’t go wrong with Bill Alkofer. He’s amazing.  The food was through True Tastes with Chef Jeff, another awesome dude.

The interview

On Nov. 18, I interviewed with a major health provider in Minnesota. The job basics were exactly what I have been doing over the past 10 years. I haven’t seen a job offering that matched me closer. 

Her: Tell me why you want to work here.

Me: Well, if I can get a bit personal, I’ve had a long history with healthcare as a patient. I’ve also worked with teens with mental or behavior issues at a group home, so I am very familiar with the issues that can arise in providing care. More than that though, my fiance was on the North Dakota state health care for the past two years. Between nearly 500 in premiums and 500 in medications each month, we were in a dire situation. With her new job, and your health care plan through them, her medications were $108 for three months. I understand exactly how important health care is to people, and I want to use my skills to help your company communicate that to members and stakeholders.

Her: How do you feel about writing articles for newsletters?

Me: That’s been my main job for the past five years. I am well versed in working with diverse groups of people and clients to deliver key messages.

Her: What do you not like about your last job?

Me: Well, most of the time when you are working with subject matter experts, when you give them the copy to look over, they will change a word or sentence here and there. But every now and then, you get back your piece and it’s been completely changed, and for the worse. At times like that, you take a breath, put it away for an hour, then come back and go through the changes one by one to see if it is a necessary change for accuracy or a change for their personal preference. I’ve never had an issue with subject matter experts once I go over the changes and explain the need to create readable pieces for a general or specific audience.

Her: What did you enjoy?

Me: I love working with experts in their fields, learning new things, and sharing the cool things they do with others. I love taking complex information and making it understandable, which is probably why I enjoy teaching as well. I love meeting people with different points of view and finding out how they approach the world. I get jazzed working with other writers on communication issues and how best to approach them in new ways.

Etc.

I sent a thank you letter three days later, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Today, I emailed the recruiter/screener who first talked to me before the in person interview. I got this back.

“Thanks for reaching out to me in regards to the Sr. Communications Consultant position.  At this time, the manager is pursuing interviews with additional candidates who more closely match the needs of the department.  I apologize that you had not been notified sooner. Please let me know if you have any questions and I wish you luck in your job search.”

I emailed her back.

“Thanks for getting back to me! As I have been doing everything required of the job for longer than the requested length of time, I was wondering what area I was seen to not meet. As I continue to apply for jobs, I would like to be able to address such misconceptions before they arise. Thanks for your help, and best of luck with your search.”

I’ve sent similar requests in the past, without the slight aggressiveness about meeting the needs of the department, but about 50 percent of the time, I don’t hear back. The other 50 percent say I did nothing wrong.

I’ve ranted about this before, but it’s SOOOO frustrating to be doing everything right, to interview well for jobs I’m more than qualified for and would kick ass in. After 3 months off the job, I am anxious to tear it up, kick some ass, and work my butt off for whoever hires me. As it is, I had such a good feeling about this job, I don’t know what to do now. I feel like I wouldn’t be qualified to do my old job at this point.

I’m getting married in less than two weeks, have less than 40 bucks to my name. I got a call from a recruiter to send my name to another organization for a job that starts next week. At this point, it’s hard to get my hopes up.

The Minnesota Unemployment Insurance kick in the balls

It took fiance about 3 months to go through all the steps necessary for her to get unemployment. She went through North Dakota, then Minnesota. It was a bitch of a system, and I wasn't looking forward to it. Two months after leaving my job because my fiance got a job in the cities, I finally heard from MN unemployment.

Minnesota determined me ineligible for unemployment last night because I didn’t move with my spouse. I called today to talk to them.

Me: Hi, I’m calling about my ineligibility determination.

Her: How can I help you?

Me: First off, I just wanted to check on the part that says pending issues for my second job.

Her: (looking) Well, it appears that that is no longer a pending issue. It has been resolved. It appears you are still working there.

Me: I’m not.

Her: Oh.

Me: That department no longer offers classes, so there’s nothing to teach.

Her: …

Me: So.

Her: …

Me: Did it affect anything?

Her: No.

Me: So despite the fact that that department made cutbacks and is no longer running doesn’t affect things?

Her: No.

Me: OK, let’s talk about the rest of it. I was denied because I’m not married to my fiance?

Her: Yes.

Me: Does it matter that we will be married in 5 weeks?

Her: No. Unfortunately not. The legislature was quite clear on that point.

Me: Or that we’ve been living together for almost 3 years?

Her: Sorry. 

Me: But if we were married, it'd be a different story. 

Her: In most cases. Yes.

Me: Is this how gay people feel?

Her: …

Me: OK, so your saying that because I’m not married yet to the person I’ve been living with and will be marrying in five weeks, and that my second job was cut, which in large part necessitated our move to make enough to sustain ourselves on, I am ineligible.

Her: Well, are you working since then?

Me: I’ve judged some high school debates, but nothing full time or permanent.

Her:  You would have to have another job.

Me: (wishing I said, why would I need unemployment then?) OK, so there’s nothing I can do?

Her: You can appeal to find out for sure.

Me: …

Her: …

Me: …

Her: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Me: I guess not.

Registering for weddings feels like waxing your scrotum

So this whole registry thing has been a disaster from the get go. Everything about the wedding seems to be wrong according to others. We aren't getting married in the right place, or cheaply enough, or doing anything right. But with registering, at least we could do one thing right. Right?

So we decided to register at Bed Bath and Beyond and Target. Nothing in this process has been easy or right. In my imagination, we would be given a scanner and go around the stores to pick what we would like. Neither place works that way exactly.

First, Bed Bath and Beyond, they sit you down in a small office with someone who goes through many books of stuff with you. None of this stuff has prices by it, so you tend to go with what you like. Then you get home and find out the crystal glasses you chose are 60 bucks a glass, which is utter bullshit. Then your mother tells you that no one is going to want to get you anything on your list, particularly the china that fiancé has dreamed about owning for her whole life.

So you go back online and find shit that is a bit more reasonable, yet compromises what you originally wanted so you feel like you are just giving up.

Then you go to target to register for stuff, but your body rejects it and craps while in the store and you leave. When you try again another day, their wedding registry is down. So then you decide to just go online and pick stuff. You spend hours and hours on it, partly because of the amount of stuff, partly because every time you pick something, the system takes a couple minutes and button clicks to put it on your list.

So at long last, you are done.

Except you're not.

If you are lucky, a friend informs you that pretty much everything on your list is only found online and has Target's ungodly shipping charge involved.

Son of a bitch.

After Fiance quits crying about yet another failure in wedding plans and how nothing is ever good enough for anyone as we prepare to get hitched, you go to the nearest target with your list in hand and get the scanner yet again. This time, you have to do it alone because Fiance is at work and can't handle yet another trip to the soulless behemoth to correct another "mistake." People in the store ask you questions like you work there because you have a scanner even though you don't wear red.

You finally pick out some things that are somewhat close to what you wanted, again compromising your hopes and desires. You get home and spend another 2 hours deleting the old stuff that is only online, then find out that even some things you scanned are out of stock. Fiance finds some of the stuff we wanted is actually in WalMart stores, and we debate whether to add another registry just for the dishes we want.

At this point, you decide to find the nearest knife and start cutting some veins, because at least that is something you can do right.

It seems that so much of wedding planning is trying to please others that won't have any of it, and we hoped the registry would be a bit of fun to focus on ourselves and what would make us happy. Unfortunately, it has done the opposite and made us unhappy.

What has made us happy is fiance's new job and benefits. She finally met with HR and in short we will be saving 10,000 a year on healthcare alone in this new job.

Last rambling sentence in this stream of consciousness blog entry to mention the squirrel and blue jay outside the apartment who seem to be having a gentleman's disagreement.

First grand day out in the cities

Saturday was our first big day out in the cities. We left the hovel of an apartment that still looks like it's been ransacked by the Nazi's who overturned Indiana Jones' room to find his father's journal.

Three months until the wedding, so we are now on full throttle to get shit done. Our first stop was Midway Rental to get some items for table decorations. Fiance got a bit weepy at the stuff we chose. 

We drove over to Yum! For lunch. As I pulled into the nearly full parking lot, there was a spot right up front that required a very good turning radius on the car. I couldn't make it on the first attempt, but as I started to back up to get a better angle on it, the guy behind me began to honk his horn.

"What the hell?" I said.

"Lets just move out of the way so he can get into the lot," fiancé said.

I moved the car down the way a bit, and the fucker took my spot. I found one other empty spot in the lot, but hulk me was starting to break out of the cage. My attuned fiancé soothed me by pleading not to start some shit. I settled down.

After lunch, where I kept eyeing the room on the look out for the jerk in order to, I don't know, glare at him or something, we went off to pick out groom attire.

"This is all you, now, so you get what you want," fiance said.

I knew that this just meant I would get to sort of pick stuff. The attendant was very helpful and we put together a spiffy black pinstriped suit jacket with a silver/black patterned vest, black tie and silver pocket square. Every time the person asked for a decision, fiancé was very happy to make it. I put in my two cents. But my favorite thing was when we had to decide between to similar looking pocket squares and fiancé would turn to me "it's your decision." 

Me: "It is?"

"Yes."

"Huh."

I'm a shit.

So with that done we went to a jewelry shop and got an amber necklace and ring for Fiance's something old. Amber is more than 100 million years old, so that should about do it.

Not once during this whole day did I do my typical whining or grumpy gus stuff. I was a doll. A doll! But fiancé apparently wanted more. She asked why I wasn't having a good time.

"I'm having a good time."

"I can't tell."

"I'm just fine. I'm not hating this, but I'm not going to start being a cheerleader either."

"But can't you be excited?"

"I am."

"You don't show it."

"Sorry. I just don't know how to do that. Have I once been crabby today?"

"No. Now that you say that, it's pretty amazing."

"I know! I feel like I've been a peach! An absolute peach!"

This conversation repeated about four times during the day.

So after all this, we rewarded ourselves with Cinematic Titanic, an event where many of the people from Mystery Science Theater 3000 do their riffing over a movie. Saturday's movie was Rattlers, where some snakes get highly aggressive due to military experiments. It's set up as a mystery as we follow the main guy, a snake expert from the local university who sounds exactly like Jimmy Stewart in the Jimmy Stewart role, yet he was no Jimmy Stewart.

Fiance had gotten stage side seats for an extra couple bucks, which meant we were in fold out chairs that we constantly worried we would break, and next to a woman who just wouldn't. shut. Up. During the opening section of the evening where each cast member came out and did a bit of stand up. It's very hard to enjoy Frank Conniff when the bitch next to us keeps whining about not having four seats together when they were late to the show, then fiddle dicking around with money to get more drinks, then even turning to fiancé and asking her a question. I apologize here to Frank, but during this time, I decide to just turn my whole body and watch this woman's show, glare at full speed, until she settled down again.

The people on our other side were nice enough, and we had a pre-show chat about moving to the cities, weddings, the theater we were in, and so on. The woman stole fiance's popcorn at the end of the night. Just grabbed it and walked out of the theater.

An odd highlight of the evening was during the break between the stand up and the show, we went to the bathroom. the theater bathrooms were packed, so fiance and I went next door to the mexican restaurant where I did my business in a hurry. I came out of the stall after nearly passing out from the smell of digested Yum, and there was Frank Conniff at the urinal. I did not say hi. I don't believe in invading a man's privacy in a restroom.

The show itself was wonderful, once one was able to forget the neighbors and the seats that seemed on the verge of breaking to the point that I had several  battle scenarios ready in case it happened during the movie. The movie was perfectly chosen for the riffing. It was even taped for a DVD release. Not sure how they frame it, but I wonder if I'll be able to pick out my laugh, or fiance's "oh my god" during a scene where a snake crawls into a bathtub.

We plan to do one fun thing a month in the cities, show-wise, and cinematic titanic was our first winning out over John Oliver and Ani DeFranco. It was well worth it.

Today I shit myself

So in the scheme of the engagement, registering for gifts should be one of the best parts, right? You get to pick out a bunch of stuff you wouldn’t buy otherwise, and people give that stuff to you. I’ve heard that this process can cause a lot of arguments between engaged couples, and while that might have been true with us, the real argument was between my body and Target. Let’s start at the beginning. 

I got to sleep in today, a wonderful long sleep that lasted until 10, which is pretty good for me these days. I woke up and felt that kind of sleep drunk you get when you sleep late and walking becomes tricky.

Today we were set to complete a bunch of errands. First we had to return a book to the library, return an overdue movie, mail some late bills, make a deposit at the bank, pick up more paint at lowes and make a credit card payment there and at Home Depot (also late).

We had a wonderful lunch at Samurai Asian Fusion. I had a Philly roll and a Tuna roll. I recommend the philly roll, which is salmon, cream chese and cucumber. I highly recommend the sweet potato roll, which is nicely sweet and a bit crunchy in the middle. It’s a great “dessert” roll if you are having three.

Then we went to Target. I’ve written about my aversion to shopping before in this blog, but this was a special kind of hell, since today every newly minted freshman and his or her parents were shopping for college supplies. Shelves were empty, particularly pillows. The place was crawling with emotion – kids ready to start their new independence while contrarily relying on their parents to set them up.

Fiance and I got the scanner from the service counter after a lot of hoopla with the registry machine since she had already done a few things online. We armed ourselves with large frappachinos and a sense of dread. She’s great at lists, and had already procured a list of items from Herberger’s at one of the wedding shows we went to back in February (she’s organized like that. I would have lost it long before March).

We started in the bedding. And after much debate, had decided on a few sheets, a comforter, quilts, and all that jazz.

Sidebar: guys, you must be very delicate in this whole process. There will be many things on your registry that don’t make the slightest bit of sense. Like waffle irons. I like a good waffle as much as the next person, but cleaning them, mixing batter, and the hassle of storage space for them makes me cringe at the idea of having one. Nevertheless, there will be a waffle iron on your registry. The best you can do is resign yourself to the fact that you are going to get a lot of stuff that you don’t want to deal with, but hey, relationships!

Luckily, we both do agree on a lot of things that we don’t need, particularly duvets. Neither of us knew what the hell it was or why we would want one, yet there was a whole aisle of them to choose from. We guessed it was like a summer comforter. I tried to imagine finding space for it in the house/apartment. We agreed to skip it. (Turns out a duvet is like a sleeping bag for your comforter. Yes, your blanket needs a blanket. And its this kind of thing that makes me hate people who invent things.)

We got through the rest of the bedding stuff after much discussion and moving out of the way for others to get through on their way to higher education. Gangs of college kids roamed the store and were too hip for all this.

We started looking at the bathroom stuff, trying to figure out what color scheme to go with, and finding the selection lacking. Any color we liked would inevitably have only a few items left for scanning, and not a full set of towels, hand towels, rugs, washcloths, and so on was to be found. In a store filled with a glut of choice, there was none to be found in the bath section.

Perhaps it was poetry that my body rejected Target in the bathroom section, because it was then that I shit my pants.

Literally. 

And thus, without warning, ended our first foray into registering. I was secretly happy to have a legitimate reason to leave. Fiance was secretly happy this happened, because she hates shopping about as much as I do, and this meant we didn’t have to go get groceries after. We could go home, I could shower, finish painting the basement, and she could nap. We’d work on the registry online and go back another day.

Sidenote: Naps are the best way to escape Fargo, even just for a little bit.

I don’t have much of an ending for this, but I have known about my aversion to department stores for a long time and will just end this with a prose poem I wrote once about Walmart after reading Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California”

Out of food, I make my way along the streets of Megaville with the defrost melting the grayish haze on the windshield.

Once at Wal-Mart, I manhandle my cart along the piles of boxes on the ground, almost hitting the pickled herring. I stop to decide what flavor of spaghetti sauce I want tonight, Garden Chunky or Garlic Overload. Florescent lights accentuate the bulbous hips of a sweatsuit-clad woman stockpiling Ramen Noodles.

               

My Viking ancestors had the well-stocked fields of England to shop through; I have tiled aisles with twenty kinds of popcorn.  I have stores that are paved over for bigger stores to give me more options.  Like twenty-one varieties of popcorn.  Low fat, buttered, natural, salted, desalted, light butter, imitation butter extract, movie theater butter, single packs, 6-packs, 12-packs, family size, salted with butter…

I try to decide between the butter and movie theater butter – under the intercom system thanking me for choosing Wal-Mart and the monotone drone of the freezers beyond the Arizona style barbecue chips – before leaving the butter on the shelf and leaving my mule-like cart. I place the movie theater butter next to the TV dinners and walk away, past the lone cashier among the row of registers, back to the frosted car and my empty stomach.

Shopping trips make me hate America

Before embarking on this anecdote about a night in my life, I want to reference a graduation speech by David Foster Wallace. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html  The daily grind/shopping section is particularly relevant and hits on the nose the absolute soul-sucking activity of having to go and get shit and not caring that you have turned everyone around you into an obstacle to your perfect life.

My night began by finding out our maid of honor will not be able to make it to the wedding due to what some call “ongoing operations” in Afghanistan. Fiance was devastated by the thought of losing her best and perhaps only friend besides me. After properly being there for her through the tears, we decided that I wouldn’t finish the basement last night, but would just go get some supplies. Two stops would suffice – Home Depot and the grocery store.

I pulled a piece of loose paint off the stoop and headed to Home Depot to get some outdoor paint and enough sealer to finish the basement. And since the sealer wasn’t quite matching the rest of the basement walls in whiteness even though it’s the same shit the previous owner used, I thought I would look into getting some paint to cover the sealer. The shopping trip from hell begins:

First I had to convince the paint mixer that a quart would be more than enough paint for three stoops and two other tiny spots on the house. Probably about 10 square feet all together. He wanted to sell me a gallon.

Then as the paint mixed I went off to find basement wall paint. A guy who looked sort of stonerish asked if I could use some help. He was clearly bored with his job of putting paint cans in stacks. I said I’m looking for basement wall paint. He directed me to the water sealant.

“I’ve got some of this, but is there paint to put over it?”

He looked at me confused. I continued.

“I have put two coats of this on the walls, and you can still sort of see through it. The can says you can put some paint on over the top to finish it.”

He pointed to the basement floor paint, which isn’t what I wanted. I now wanted him to stop helping me, but remained polite.

“OK. I think I’ll just look around a bit. Thank you for your help!”

He sort of ambled away. I looked at paint scrapers, trying to find a cheap plastic one that wasn’t too big.

“What you looking for?”

He was back! I explained I wanted a plastic paint scraper, but all I could see were packs of three, which was more than I needed. He pointed to the metal ones, which were 3 times the cost. I balked. He pointed to a plastic paint scraper that was the size of a Bob Ross paint pallet, but there were no happy trees swaying in the breeze in my head.

“I think I need something a bit more versatile.” I said. Fiance found this statement highly amusing when I later recounted the story.

So I got a metal scraper, picked up my mixed paint and said fuck it to looking for a latex wall paint because I simply did not want to have the dude try to help me again. I went searching at the far end of the store to figure out how much gutters would be to put up, and looked at drain spouts for 10 minutes wishing now that someone would ask to help me.

No one did.

So on to the check out.

Home Depot has a bank of four self check out counters, but I have yet to have them work right. This time I thought might be the first, since everything in the cart had a barcode. How wrong I was.

The girl that is the actual check out person said she would be over to help me as soon as the second thing I scanned didn’t work. “The mixed cans don’t work as well in these,” she said. She used her hand scanner, but it wouldn’t enter the price. She started to say things like “are you sure it isn’t up there?” until she finally figured out that she was using the wrong hand scanner.

So then I pay and am walking out to the car. I see an older woman and her cane-using mother walking the same direction and guess that they are parked next to me. I scoot to the car and practically throw the stuff in the trunk, but it’s too late and the cane woman is slowly getting into the car, which is fine. What isn’t fine is the part where the car was running, and she spent the next five minutes sitting there with her car door open so I couldn’t get into my car. Five fucking minutes of me leaning against my trunk and trying not to think horrible things about how easy it would be to grab her cane and beat her car door shut with it. I wanted to go and shut her door, but I’m an intimidating guy and didn’t want to get rape whistled or something, which is a real fear of mine from watching too many hilarious misunderstandings in sitcoms.

So I get out of there and finally get to Cashwise, where the adventure continues. I had five items to get, including some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as requested by the Fiance to help with the Afghanistan emotions. I get to the frozen aisle and there is no one there except a woman with a shopping cart full of her groceries and young son and her husband. They are debating what ice cream to get, and her cart is sitting right in front of the Ben and Jerry’s door. Dammit! I go and get some garlic bread thinking they would be done. But I ended up standing there another five minutes as this woman looked through every fucking coupon in her fist full of coupons to find the right one. Politely waiting on the outside, but wanting to take her cart and shove it away inside.

Got the Ben and Jerrys and headed to the checkout, which was crazy busy. The self checkout counters were less so, and I got in the line with a couple who was nearly done scanning their items.

Pause here to insert how much I hate people who use the self check out when they have a cart overflowing with groceries. For some reason, I believe that self check out should be reserved for those without 100 items to scan.

I watched the next line over as three people pulled up, scanned their items, paid and left as the couple in front of me struggled to get Pert shampoo to scan, then gather up change between them to pay for the groceries – CHANGE!!!

I spent entirely too much time in lines, and even though it was nice to see a TSA agent waiting in a line at the grocery store, it wasn’t worth it. And it’s hard not to think about Fiance’s best friend going off to fight for our right to hate the miserable existence of daily life and waiting in shopping lines and dealing with overly helpful or non-existent employees while watching other people struggle to pay for food with change and have to spend 5 minutes finding a coupon to make ice cream affordable and perhaps help bring a bit of sunshine to this ridiculous world where jobs are still scarce despite recovered profits and growth in the corporate sector and you just want to take a dump on the grocery scanner as a statement but don’t want to spend a night in jail, although that’s becoming more tempting every day you don’t hear from the 30 resumes you sent out last week. And that sort of run on sentence is what goes through my head every minute I spend shopping which is why I wear headphones to keep the podcasts going and keep out the demons. 

My Dinner with Gourmet: Part Three

Part One Here

Part Two Here

Welcome to Part Three!

The table has been set and the house cleaned. I’ve got recorders hidden underneath the dining room table and high atop the kitchen cabinet. In North Dakota, it’s legal to tape a conversation as long as one of the parties, including the one recording, knows that it is being recorded. The more you know. Shooting star.

Fiancé and I are watching Fringe as we wait for Simplicity Gourmet to arrive.

Nervous.

Wondering if Fiancé will be able to resist.

Fiancé says she’s scared. We agree that I’ll do most of the talking, which is nullified almost from the moment Simplicity Gourmet arrives (from here on, he’ll be SG).

The doorbell rings. SG enters. The best way to describe him is to compare him to a cartoon children’s minister. He’s in his 40s, about 5’ 6” and has light, thinning hair up top. He has spectacles, a stout build, and a round head with a goatee. He’s carrying a hard suitcase and shakes my hand and introduces himself with a boisterous, “Welcome to the party! Ha ha! How you guys doing?”

His manner is enthusiastic without being annoyingly so, and feminine enough to be non-threatening, which is why I can’t get the idea out of my head that he was a youth pastor in a former life. If he’d had a cross in the suitcase, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

He asks us how much we know about what he’s doing – the free vacation, the menu, the coupon for wedding invitations. He compliments us on our memory of what we had been told. He asks which of us is the cook (me).

“Did they tell you I was going to show you some cool cookware?” he asks.

“No, they did not mention that,” Fiancé responds. It’s not a lie, but our research had made us very aware of the reason for this visit.

As he sets up, he asks about our wedding day, where we grew up, how long we’ve been together. As if reading my priestly thoughts, he quotes The Princess Bride: “Twoo Wuv! This is what bwings us togetha…” We discuss a mutual admiration for Wallace Shawn, although we could not recall his name.

He starts his pitch.

“So here is the skinny on the cookware you guys. It gives me a chance to showcase what we call waterless greaseless cookware. Have you guys ever heard of it? What it is, is we teach people to cook foods a little faster and a heck of a lot healthier. So it’s heart smart. It retains vitamins and minerals. I’m gonna fry chicken and potatoes together but I’m not going to use any butter or fats or greases to cook them in so it’s more heart smart. I’m going to do three vegetables all in one pan. I’m going to use a tablespoon of water to cook them in so it’s going to retain all the vities (re: vitamins) and minerals and what have ya. I’m also going to make you a peach cobbler in a small skillet on top of the flame.  You can actually bake desserts on top with the cookware instead of in the oven. It’s kind of cool to bake things on top of the burner instead of in the oven. The cookware we do have is an investment, it’s not cheap cookware, it’s meant to last forever, it’s healthy, it comes with a spectacular warrantees, warrantees you can use forever, it’s waranteed for your lifetimes and then when you pass away you can will your cookware one generation down and transfer the cookware for two people’s lifetimes (I swear he didn’t use periods, but commas during this part). It is an investment, OK? You guys like it, and you want to look at a brochure when I’m done feeding you, feel free. If you don’t want to look at a brochure, that’s cool, that’s completely cool, too. One thing I do tell folks before I get started is at the end it’s truly never a question whether people can afford it, it’s a question of if they like it. We have a budget plan, so we can fit this into anybody’s particular budget. If you guys see yourself going out to a restaurant once a month and dropping 40-50 bucks. If you can give that up one time a month, you can afford to have this stuff. I really believe it.”

SG is good. He has us sitting on chairs while he speaks, jumping from health to the food to warrantees and preparing us for any sticker shock that may come later. He moves to the free vacation, which is a 3 day 2 night stay at an all inclusive “escape” to Mexico, Dominican Republic or Costa Rica. The food, non-alcoholic beverages, and non-motorized activities are all included as well. Airfare would be up to us. He says the reason they figure they can do this is few people want to travel to the tropics for two nights and will extend their vacation for $100-125 a night per couple. He asks us if it would be cool to never have to buy cookware again. Fiancé says it hasn’t been that big a deal. I struggle to remember the last time we had to buy cookware. It was a wok we got as a Christmas gift. Before that, maybe 5 years. SG lightly praises the convenience of not having to shop for a $20 pan every couple years before moving on. I wonder who I know that may be buying such shoddy cookware so often.

Fiancé asks if he has been on the vacation. He hasn’t. Has anyone he knows? Yes. Do they enjoy it? Of course they do!

SG, not to be swayed, brings the conversation back to the food and shows us the special whistles in the lids of the pans that tell the cook when to close the valve and let the food start cooking on a low heat.

Fiancé asks where SG is from. A small town 2 hours away. He covers a big area, and is in Fargo for a couple days.

He brings it back to the food, asks us if we are vegetable fans. He uses a rather large gadget to chop up carrots. He asks what we do. We tell him Fiancé is unemployed. We teach when we can and when state budgets don’t screw us over. Fiancé is upbeat, tells him she’s looking for something a little more full time. He slides into talking about the one piece that some people start with, if anything, of their cookware, an electric skillet with a synthetic grease core that spreads the heat evenly from a simmer up to 400 degrees. You can do roasts, casseroles, even popcorn in this skillet. He drops in the chicken breasts.

SG: So when you do put stuff in here at first, it sticks. But the difference between this and something at the store is as it sears it will let loose from the bottom of the pan and flip right over.

Fiancé: So have you seen a lot of couples this week? Is this just what you do?

SG: This is what I do.

Fiancé: Wow. That’s kind of fun.

SG: This is it.

Me: You work at night all the time?

M: Pretty much, during the day people are at work and stuff. On Saturdays I’ll do daytime and lunches. Occasionally there are people who do swing shifts. You can make fresh hash browns for Sunday morning. Making fresh potato chips for you as well. So, you got your resume flying out there trying to find something?

Fiancé: Pretty much everywhere

SG: All over the place, huh? Positive thinking will get you a position. (it hasn’t)

Fiancé: That’s what I’m hoping.

SG: So when the spuds go in with the chicken, you’ll be eating 8 minutes after that.

The conversation continues this way, a little personal talk, but always going back to the food and the cookware. He segues into the construction – seven layers of metal in every piece: surgical grade stainless steel with nonporous, noncreative titanium, cast iron, three layers of aluminum, and another layer of the surgical grade stainless steel. That’s six layers if you are counting. Not sure where the other one went.

As he discusses the surgical grade steel with titanium, which is “a healthier metal,” he advises us to throw away any of our Teflon coated pans that are flaking or scratching, as Teflon is a carcinogen and will literally kill birds and small animals in or around the kitchen if you overheat the pans.

He moves into the warrantee, how we can will this cookware to our children, that they are the oldest manufacturer of cookware in the US that is still manufactured in the US today. The company started making cast iron skillets back in 1874, moved to stainless steel, then into waterless and greaseless cookware about 70 years ago.

This causes me to wonder why. Why, during the buildup to a war do you make cookware that requires a lot of metals? Why would they give a rat’s ass at the time if their food was made with less water or no grease? Did anyone care how much grease was in his food at that time? SG does not have answers to this. Fiancé gives me a look, because I love asking questions that no reasonable person should have the answer to unless they like to make up assumptions. It’s one of my many “quirks” she puts up with.

So now, in addition to our health, buying this cookware helps to put food on an American factory worker’s plate.

He’s good.

I like him.

Fiancé seems to like him as well.

SG starts talking about the history of the company again. They couldn’t compete with other cookware at Macy’s or Bloomingdales. No one was there to tell the customer why theirs was more expensive or about the superior advantages of their product, the longevity, the quality, the health. I imagine the years ahead with Fiancé, turning valves in lids, cooking lasagna in an electric skillet, getting healthier.

SG now begins to talk about the cost, starting at $200 a piece. The electric skillet is $595. We could invest $7,000 in their cookware sets, but nobody is doing that! No, that’s just a range. With a budget plan, they can start as low as $30 to $35 a month. That’s feasible. That’s reasonable. That’s the cost of eating out once a month.

You get what you pay for with this cookware. It saves time in the kitchen, saves money in your pocket, and will improve your health. How does it save you money, you ask? Well, firstly, you are going to be able to cook on a lower heat with these pans, so there’s the energy savings. You won’t have to replace your pans again, ever, for the low price of $30 a month. But hold on, you also save on groceries with this cookware! Did you know food shrinks when you cook it? Meat can shrink up to 30-35 percent, vegetables as much as 50 percent. So what you do, see, is figure that you’ll save about 20 percent on your grocery budget because you won’t have to buy as much food to make up for shrinkage. That’s enough savings to make up for what you will spend on this cookware, easy!

OK. I can tell you are interested, but we need to pause.

I need to tell you, reader, about the three evils of nutrition.

1.     The grease and fat in your cooking is killing you. It’s the leading cause of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. of A. Men and women alike. If you don’t eat healthy, you better make time to be sick.

2.     Heat. High heat specifically. Those vegetables you are cooking to eat aren’t doing shit for you. You might as well just throw them away for all the good they do. Once you hit 190 degrees, those vitamins and minerals are done for. There is no nutritionist on earth that would argue with this: Cooked vegetables are not good for you.

3.     Water. That’s right, water, the source and symbol of life on earth. Water is not good to cook foods. Let me submit as proof boiled carrots. All those vitamins and minerals are going down the sink with orange boiled carrot water. Then to eat them, you add butter, brown sugar. That’s not doing you any favors.

Heart disease is killing us as a country. Kids as young as 14 in New York are showing significant risk of heart disease. Listen, in this fast paced, cooking from a box society, it is time to take control! One way to do that is with the right tool. Something that eliminates the need for grease, heat, water, and oxygen (yes, that’s bad for you too). It may be an investment, but when you are 90, looking back on your life with this cookware, you are going to want to thank your young self for taking that leap, for biting that bullet.

It’s simple.

Every piece is like a mini-oven.

It retains 90 percent of the good stuff in your food.

You’ll also get cooking lessons.

DVDs with recipes.

Fiancé: That’s amazing!

We eat. The potatoes are good. The carrots, corn and broccoli, while cooked together, retain their separate flavors, vegetable flavors. The chicken breast is even edible.

SG: What did you guys like about the cookware with what you saw?

Fiancé: No splatter. What about you?

Me: I don’t know.

Fiancé: It was fast, and the food was good.

We continue to eat as SG cleans after himself in the kitchen and talk to us.

SG: Back in the day, people didn’t buy this because of no water or oil or the health benefits, people bought it because they knew they would have decent sized families and the gals wanted one set of kettles that they could use for the rest of their life. Here in the last 20-30 years, since health has become a big problem in this country, the greaseless and waterless side of things have really taken off. You couple that with the harmful effects of Teflon, people are starting to open their eyes. And you know what? Last and certainly not least, it’s nice to have nice things. For the sake of giving up one meal at a sit down joint a month, it’s very doable. I don’t know what your financial situation is. It’s none of my business, but $35 or whatever you can invest in a month and if you want this cookware, we can go over the brochure and look at some cool stuff. If not…

Fiancé: Well we’d like to look at the brochure for sure. We can’t make a commitment tonight because we’d have to look at finances and such. But it is something we are interested in.

SG: Let me ask you this, if this is something you would really want in your house, what would fit comfortable in a monthly budget for the two of you.

Me: Right now, with one of us unemployed…

Fiancé: Nothing. But we’re hoping that, much like my life, as things get better and I get employed, that we would be able to afford something like this.

SG doesn’t want to show us the brochures, or he would have to tell us about pricing, the free gifts and such, and if we aren’t ready to buy, he won’t be able to offer us the same benefits later. I don’t know why that is.

We talk about his kids, the new pool he had put in, mouth-burning foods, how far it is from Mankato to anywhere, the Air Force. He’s pleasant, but working to put away the cookware carefully, deliberately. He makes his way toward the door. I ask about the brochures again.

SG: If it’s something you can look at and afford, yeah I’ll show you one, but if you are not in a position to make that commitment, then don’t. I’m not here to pressure anybody into anything, never have, never will. I don’t want that person in my house or your house. So when you are ready, give me a jingle.

With that, he is gone. Off into the cold night. I almost want to go after him, not for the cookware, but something else. Hope. I need some hope in my life, and it feels like he hadn’t delivered, that he might have some in his vehicle, and that he is driving away with it.

I was impressed by the evening. He wasn’t as pushy as I feared. I felt drawn to buying, but didn’t. And when we said no, he took our answer graciously and moved on.

Fiancé and I do a post-mortem of the evening. We find out that I was more into it than she was. If we weren’t so hard up for a job, I might have even gone ahead with it. However, he lost her several times during the presentation:

1. “Don’t make me feel like I’m less of a human being because I don’t have a job and we decided not to make a commitment tonight. You keep your secret little brochure that I can’t look at, your secret incentives and your secret budget, and take it with you.”

2. The implication that water is a health threat.

3. The fact he hadn’t been on the vacation himself.

4. She didn’t know how this new cookware would work for all the recipes we’ve built up. How do you make Chinese food if you can’t use oil?

5. At one point, he said part of the problem was people cooking out of boxes. The first thing he did was open a box of cake mix to make cobbler (with a can of peach pie filling).

6. The cookware, with all its valves and whistles, was ultimately confusing.

Fiancé: “He was very nice. I liked him, but I also didn’t like him and I’ll tell you why. He didn’t care about the wedding stuff. You are in my house because of my wedding – talk to me about my wedding. Talk to me about Boston. Talk to me about stuff, real stuff, you know?” Hope. It goes a long way.

In the end, the guy came, tried to sell us the American Dream – to get married, have kids, cook at home with nice things, and eventually leave a legacy of cookware for our children. But that isn’t our dream. We passed. And as time passes, even 30 minutes later, I feel no regret.

“I don’t think this is the American Dream,” Fiancé says. “My American Dream is to love you.” 

My Dinner With Gourmet: Part Two

Part Two: In which I grill my Fiancé about how this dinner touches on all our hopes and fears

For this section of the story to make some sense, we need to establish some facts. My fiancé has more degrees than some doctors and more experience than necessary for every job she has applied for, and was in her second month of unemployment and 12th+ month of underemployment when this all went down. We’re still trying to figure out the employment situation before Fargo bleeds us to death. It’s hard not to feel like life is mocking us most days – when I’m not busy working two jobs and helping to send out 15-30 resumes a week.

So the undercurrent in this whole situation with a stranger coming over to cook us dinner was one of fear of where our lives were headed. A lot of fear mingled with a cup or two of bitterness over the idea that some people are able to pay for such ridiculously overpriced cookware.

The night before the Simplicity Gourmet cook was to arrive, we sat on the couch with a recorder. We turned the conversation to the dinner and how we couldn’t find anyone to join us. Fiancé thought if other people came she wouldn’t be so embarrassed. It would help to have someone there to keep her strong.

Fiancé: It wouldn’t take much for this person to convince me that the pots and pans would fill a hole in my life. Because I’m getting married and therefore I’m happy and this will be the happiest I will ever be, being engaged. This is what I am led to understand. That our whole relationship is based on this one year. The only happy year we have is our engagement year.

Me: Who says that?

Fiancé: Pretty much everyone.

Me: That’s crazy.

Fiancé: There’s a lot of pressure right now. I just didn’t want us to have to go through it alone because I’m really scared of making a mistake. My fear is they are going to come in and just smell how vulnerable I am. They are just going to smell it.

Despite her fears, she was willing to go through with this dinner for me. She knew I needed it, that it would be 90 minutes of utter discomfort. She saw it as one way to help me find my love of writing again. She had been encouraging me to start a blog for a while.

Fiancé: Nothing happens on accident. We have no idea where this story could go. It may not go anywhere, but it’s enough to get you to realize you are not in the right place at this moment. I’ve been pushing left and right – why don’t you blog? Why don’t you journal? Why don’t you do this or that – and none of it landed. But somehow this lit a fire. You’ve gone through worse for me. And when we are on hour three at David’s Bridal...

Me: Keep my trap shut?

Fiancé: Yeah.

We were both unreasonably nervous about this unknown. We had spent hours cleaning the house in order for someone to come and try to sell us stuff. If anything, Fiancé figured she might pick up some sales techniques that she could use to sell herself as a brand to potential employers. We talked about what we had found online about Simplicity Gourmet.

Fiancé: There was a girl that described what happened in a chat room. She said the broccoli was cooking the whole time while they did the 90-minute presentation at a hotel convention room. Then they were both supposed to eat. They got a sprig of broccoli.

Me: Was that the one where someone from the company wrote back?

Fiancé: Yeah.

Me: And they are like, “Sorry, we have a lot of people there. We can’t give broccoli to everybody.”

Fiancé: Yeah.

Me: And it’s like, yeah you can, it’s broccoli.

We created scenarios with each other for the potential evening ahead. Perhaps we would say we did it for the free food, that we are that desperate, and see if he still wanted us to buy the cookware. Perhaps this salesman would slip into the conversation a bit about his sick children. Fiancé thought it would be fun to pretend to have rashes and ask the person for his opinion on our skin conditions. “I’d really like to gross him out somehow,” she said. “That’s terrible of me. Maybe you could just itch your crotch a lot and then shake his hand.”

Deep down, I figured the most likeable person we’ve ever met would come through that door – someone that we would want to be friends with, to have over for board games and popcorn and talk about the latest episode of Fringe. The kind of person that it is very hard to say no to.

I had a friend in college from Texas who had an inability to give up on an idea once it got into his head. He was the type to approach someone who had parked in a handicapped spot and berate her until she walked back to her car to move it. Once he talked me into driving him to the store to buy a camera so he could get a picture of the deer head he had mounted on the end of a rake. When we got back, there were two cop cars by the head. He had to see a counselor.

He’s in banking now.

Me: You know, I imagine they get you to a point where you feel bad that you have to keep saying no. I don’t know what they are going to do, but I feel like they are going to emotionally blackmail us, you know what I mean? Make me feel like I don’t love you if I don’t buy the stuff.

Fiancé: Will that work on you?

Me: I can’t imagine it working.

Fiancé: For me, there has to be major humanity in what this person does. Charts, talking – none of that is going to change me. There has to be pathos, and just that. And real humanity.

Me: Do you think Simplicity Gourmet realizes who they are trying to sell to? People like us.

Fiancé: No, because we’re not your typical bridal couple. We’re supposed to be fresh out of college with amazing jobs.

Me: I just think it’s wrong.

Fiancé: You eventually get the cookware, so they aren’t really scamming you.

Me: I’m not going to fault them for doing what they can to make a buck. But imagine, if we had that money we could pay off your hospital bills. By doing this, we would be putting cookware over your health.

Fiancé: I really want things to be different. Which is why it would work.

Me: Because it would be a way to convince yourself that you are better off than you are. Is doing this going to make you feel horrible?

Fiancé: What do you mean?

Me: Well, you’re crying.

Fiancé: I feel horrible because if you weren’t here I would buy it. It would work. I think that’s why I feel awful about it.

Me: Because I’m the only one keeping you from doing it?

Fiancé: And I’m scared that you are going to fall victim. I just… I firmly believe in karma. I spent the last eight years giving help to students who didn’t always deserve it. I didn’t know that when we really needed it, there wouldn’t be anybody to give us help. I really wanted your brother and sister-in-law here to make sure we didn’t buy anything. I’m scared.

Me: Do you resent me for having to do this?

Fiancé: No. Not at all. It’s something I can do. It’s the only thing I can do for you right now. It’s the only thing I can do for you. I can’t even shop for food without going over budget.

Me: Do you think other couples that they get to are better off and able to pay for this stuff?

Fiancé: I think that my high school insecurities are on the surface with all this. I’m not the perfect bride. It’s just like being in high school again where I was a tomboy and I liked boy things and that was never good and I stayed that way all through college, even in my profession I’m one of the boys. I think the women getting married, everyone else must really have it together. I expect all brides to be put together. And because I’m not put together, I’m not a bride, I’m not what they are looking for. And so I assume that since all the other people must have everything together, that’s why this works. Because they all just must. Otherwise why would that be your target audience?

Me: I still don’t know why I’m doing this.

Fiancé: It’s so that you don’t end up like me. I think it’s fine. I’m just really sorry that I’m the only one that seems to be supporting you. We could both be unemployed. Things could always be worse. Things could be worse.

Me: Can I say something? Thank you.

Fiancé: For what?

Me: For being ok with it. For not saying “I have better ways to spend my time.”

Fiancé: This is my job.

Me: I love you

Fiancé: And I am, no matter what I say, very glad to marry you.

Me: Never had someone say that in an interview before.

Fiancé: Thank goodness.

Next time: Part Three, In Which We Secretly Record Our Evening With Simplicity Gourmet